Tag Archive: Gouriki Ayame

The April 3rd episode of VS Arashi (VS 嵐) was the Most Most Dame Arashi special, in which the group determined who was the most useless Arashi member on the show during the past year. I watched it and elected not to review it this time because the format was the same as the previous times they’ve done MMDA, and viewers can decide without any help whether they’d enjoy that kind of highlight episode. On that note, was the first regular episode of the new season worth watching? Let’s find out.

Fair warning, though: if you haven’t watched the MMDA special but want to, they start this episode by talking about MMDA and who got the punishment. I’ll leave out the screenshots of that, just in case.

After that talk, the guest team – the cast of the movie L♥DK (hereafter – and on most of the internet – L-DK) – emerged.

The members were Gouriki Ayame-san, Yamazaki Kento-kun, Nakao Akiyoshi-kun, Okamoto Rei-san, Kiriyama Ren-kun, and . . . and the last member isn’t on any cast listing that I can see – most critically not on the one at the Japanese Wikipedia. That last member was Suenaga Mai-san (末永真唯) whose main credits on the internet seem to be in conjunction with Gouriki-san’s variety show GO!オスカル!X21, and who Gouriki-san introduced as the youngest member of the team (she’s entering high school this month).

It was also interesting to see Yamazaki-kun here so soon after going on Arashi ni Shiyagare to promote his new drama with Ninomiya-kun – busy guy.

The plus one guests were a delight to see – Yama-chan and Shizu-chan of Nankai Candies. The Arashi members greeted Shizu-chan as a sixth member of Arashi, thereby producing some humor by pretending Yama-chan didn’t exist. Frankly, I’d be more excited to have Shizu-chan on my team, too, but perhaps Yama-chan will surprise us.

The top single for the past week was AKB48’s “Mae Shika Mukanee”, which saw 1,091,406 copies sold, which is in-line with expectations set by the first AKB single of the year for the past three years.

E-girls had a good showing with “Diamond Only” at #2, selling 72,808. That’s at exactly the same level as their previous two singles, so full marks for consistency.

At #3, Lead’s “Sakura” did well, selling 41,559.

AAA’s “Love” took #4 with 25,486 copies sold.

In its second week, “King of Otoko” from Kanjani8 sold only 20,761 at #5 to bring its total to 373,649. That’s just 6% of first week sales, and suggests some . . . interesting features . . . were involved in getting the first week number where it was.

“Bittersweet” from Arashi took #10 in its third week, tacking on 13,201 to push its total to 567,793.

Two instances of special coverage this week: Gouriki Ayame-san’s new single took #12 and sold 9,231 in its first week. Kondo Masahiko-san’s “Sennen Renbo” was at #22 and saw 5,003 copies sold.

As expected, it’s never safe to count Fukuda Kouhei-san’s “Nanbu Semishigure” out. It bounced back once again to #21, selling 5,134 to bring its seventy-one week total to 164,091. It’s sort of amazing that it’s only sold 164k after spending so long in the top 30.

The release schedule really picks up going into February, and the floodgates fully open by the 19th. While the most of the top spots are probably going to the obvious names, seeing as how Arashi, AKB48, and other marquee groups are in the mix, there’s going to be plenty of depth to the charts soon. No more of these lingering singles filling up the top 30.

This list has selected single and album releases for the month, not all of them (i.e. releases from groups that I’m interested in tracking or at least recognize). With the sudden explosion of releases to keep track of, I know I must have missed important ones, so please mention the artist and title in a comment and I’ll update the list.

More complete listings are available on merchant websites (I use CD Japan’s list).

VS Arashi (VS 嵐) is a game show hosted by the idol group Arashi, who compete against a different team of entertainers every week. I don’t think we got an episode on August 29th, so the guys are back after the arduous 24-hr TV telethon and they’re all kitted out:

I have to admit that there’s something about seeing them in soccer uniforms that makes me hopeful that this will be a good episode and they’ll be in a more active mood. But there’s no explanation of why they’re in the soccer kits just yet. They apparently had a choice between the usual tall soccer socks and regular length socks, and after opting for the tall socks because he thought they’d be cooler, it seems Ninomiya-kun is regretting the choice and rolls them down. Try wearing shinguards under them! That really leaves a mark on your lower leg!

The opposing team was the cast of the Gatchaman movie – Matsuzaka Tori-kun (松坂桃李), Ayano Go-san (綾野 剛), Gouriki Ayame-san, Hamada Tatsuomi-kun, Suzuki Ryohei-kun, and kabuki actor Nakamura Shido-san (中村 獅童). I wonder what Nakamura-san thinks of the drama Pin to Kona – he was born into a kabuki family himself (his father is Nakamura Shido I, he changed his name to Nakamura Shido II at the age of nine when he took over after his father’s retirement).

Last week’s top single was “Burning Up” from EXILE TRIBE (Sandaime J Soul Brothers vs GENERATIONS), which easily surpassed the platinum mark, selling 263,625. I trust this is a legit number and they didn’t play any of the tricks we saw with that EXILE single, in which case this is an amazing result.

Linked Horizon took #2 with “Jiyuu e no Shingeki” (自由への進撃), also getting a phenomenal result with 129,110 copies sold.

At #3, Watanabe Mayu-san’s “Rappa Renshuchu” (ラッパ練習中) had the worst showing of any of her singles so far – 67,329 copies sold.

On the other hand, “Kanashiki Amefuri / Adam to Eve no Dilemma” (悲しき雨降り／アダムとイブのジレンマ) from C-ute scored the group’s best first week in 21 major label releases, selling 60,592.